“Mr Blair has said publicly that he sees his mandate in Kazakhstan as to do good for the country rather than just to raise money for his own operations, so we feel it’s appropriate and necessary for him to be raising human rights issues,” he said.

“We’ve got no evidence he has been doing so [and] we see the danger if he doesn’t do so as whitewashing the image of the government.”

A spokeswoman for Blair said TBA’s work in Mangystau involved “no comms [communications] element.”

She said he was hired to “help build capacity to attract investment and improve accountability as Mangystau sought to deliver better services for its citizens.”

Tony Blair Associates has also been linked to a Saudi Arabian oil company founded by the son of Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah.